Mastering Your Mindset After Weight Loss Surgery with Kathryn Shallow

Bariatric surgery can be a powerful tool for hitting the reset button on your metabolic health, but people often underestimate the mental and emotional components of weight loss surgery. Surgeons, dietitians, and therapists all agree that long-term success has less to do with what happens in the operating room and more to do with the mindset and behaviors that follow.

That's why I'm thrilled to introduce our guest today, Kathryn Shallow, an LPC (Licensed Professional Counselor) specializing in bariatric mental health. Kathryn underwent bariatric surgery herself 15 years ago, which sparked her passion for helping others navigate the mental and emotional challenges of the post-op journey.

Whether you’ve had bariatric surgery or not, this episode covers a lot of important mindset issues, including the importance of reprogramming our brains away from diet culture and redefining the role of food in our lives. We also explore how to separate our worthiness from our weight, so we can start to trust, embrace, and appreciate our own bodies.

References

Follow Kathryn on TikTok 

If you are interested in Kathryn’s upcoming 40+ bariatric support group (open to men and women), you can email her at kalowmay@gmail.com or send a direct message on TikTok with your email address to receive the group information sheet, required screening form, and instructions for payment. 

Information on the 6 sessions (all run via Google Meet) is as follows:

Sunday March 10th 3:00 - 4:15 pm EST // Sunday March 17th 3:00 - 4:15 pm EST // Sunday March 24th 3:00 - 4:15 pm EST // **no group Sunday March 31st - Easter Sunday // Sunday April 7th 3:00 - 4:15 pm EST // Sunday April 14th 3:00 - 4:15 pm EST

Audio Stamps

01:00 - Dr. Rentea introduces her guest, Kathryn Shallow, who tells us more about her work in bariatric mental health.

10:50 - We learn how diet culture has warped our sense of reality and why it’s important to stay in our own lane.

20:58 - Kathryn shares the importance of building up trust again with your own physical body in order to start liking yourself (or at least not hating yourself). 

26:13 - Dr. Rentea asks Kathryn to explain how “disciplined eating” can help people get back on track - without restriction or punitive measures.

30:30 - Kathryn talks about the new bariatric virtual support group she recently launched, as well as the other ways people can work with her.

Quotes

“Bariatric surgery, while it is a metabolic reset, what it does is it prevents you from eating a lot at one time. It does not prevent you from eating a lot.” - Kathryn Shallow

“Often, you don't realize what has been permanently in your brain until you no longer have the ability to use food as a coping strategy.” - Kathryn Shallow

“You can have success and failure going at the same time. It's never all or nothing” - Kathryn Shallow 

“Our brains are wired to critique and criticize and self-doubt and look at the negatives. And so it really is a lot of mindset work in pointing out the actual reality of what's going on with our bodies.” - Kathryn Shallow

All of the information on this podcast is for general informational purposes only. Please talk to your physician and medical team about what is right for you. No medical advice is being on this podcast.

If you live in Indiana or Illinois and want to work with doctor Matthea Rentea, you can find out more on www.RenteaClinic.com

Transcript

0:28

I have the privilege today of having on Catherine Shallow. She is gonna give us her background of who she is and how she helps people, but. We actually recorded this interview six months ago and everybody, for the first time in my life, four years podcasting, I lost the interview. I was so embarrassed. And she's like, stop saying sorry. But just so you know, this is actually the second time, so I think it's gonna be even better'cause now we know each other even more. But Catherine, can you start out telling everybody who you are and how do you help people? Because I've gotten to know you through social and I just love what you put into the world. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. So, Catherine, Cello, I'm a LPC, so Licensed professional counselor in the state of Michigan. And, I have been a therapist for twenty-five years, and for the last 15 I've really been focusing on bariatric mental health. So I'm myself had bariatric surgery 15 years ago, and that became the catalyst to kind of become a therapist focusing in on that particular aspect of mental health. I love that so much and I, you know, I'm not someone that had bariatric surgery, but I've had obesity my whole life. I'm on the medications, everything you talk about. I just wanna say for anyone that's listening, I relate to all your content, how you talk about things, how you relate to things. So if anyone's listening right now, this is not just an episode. If you've had bariatric surgery, I think the. Mental blocks are the same for all of us on this journey, to be honest. So one of the things I'm wondering if we can start is do you see any kind of common challenges that people have either pre-surgery or post-surgery, kind of how they're thinking about food or different challenges that they have? Do you see any kind of common threads? Yeah, for sure. I, I think people tend to focus in on their relationship with food and, thinking that once they have surgery that will repair itself. Yeah, with relationship with food and it, it just doesn't happen like that. One thing I say often is bariatric surgery. While it is a metabolic reset, what it does is it prevents you from eating a lot at one time. It does not prevent you from eating a lot. Yeah. And so, I think people are often surprised at the mental and emotional challenges that come after surgery because there's this point where patients generally realize. This didn't cure anything. This is a management tool for life and that never ends. No matter if you've got, you've gotten to your maintenance weight or not, that is a management tool that you can utilize for the rest of your life, but it never is done. Yeah, I like that you bring that up. I always say the right tool at the right time, and I agree. It's like it is something that we're implementing, but everything is not necessarily changed afterwards. So I love how you brought this up. It won't repair itself, your relationship with food. And so you bring up this concept, I always call it grazing, right? Where you like these small amounts all the time. So that's where you can equal still a really high calorie load and. So interestingly enough, half my obesity medicine practice are patients that have had bariatric surgery in the past. So they either never lost as much weight to begin with. Maybe they lost no weight. It's actually quite interesting. Or they regained a significant amount of it and some regain we know is normal. There's actually different phases to working on intentional weight loss, but it's interesting that I see the same. Challenges with food persists, it might just look different how they do it. So it might not be binging all at once, but it might be constantly seeking out, you know, those different things that they enjoy throughout the day. So how do you, I mean, when do you find is the best time for someone to work with you? Like is it before they get surgery to start working on this? I know there are, there are, there are tasks that we, have psychologists that, you know, kind of work and make sure that they're appropriate for surgery. But do you, do people get to you even before having surgery or is it mainly afterward if they're struggling? I do see some before surj, people have made up their minds by the time they get to the point of deciding they're going forward with surgery. So the majority of people I see are after surgery and I, I think one of the reasons why that is, is because. I think as much as you can prepare for bariatric surgery and you can go on socials and you can look at people's experiences. You attend the educational classes, meet with all the different doctors and jump through the hoops. I think it often is you don't realize what has been I. Permanently in your brain until you can no long, you no longer have the ability to use food as a coping strategy. Yeah. And so I think it's really hard. You can try to prepare so much someone as much as possible. It's kind of like being a mom. You know? You can read all the books, you can do everything, but until you have that, you're, you're responsible for a child 24 7. It's like, oh, oh. This is what that is now, and it takes people by, I, I think it's, I constantly, when I do lives on TikTok, people will constantly comment. I did not realize this was so mental. I, I had even brawl the prep. I didn't realize this was so mental. Yeah. Yes, definitely. And I, again, I'm, I'm gonna draw a lot of analogies with the anti obesity medications and surgery. Like, it's almost like people need to learn through doing it, so they need to learn. Oh, I actually felt actually kind of sick with eating that, even though they've been told that this portion won't work or this. You know, whatever it might be, but there's almost this granular, you need to have the actual tactile feedback. Yeah. And then not judge yourself because you didn't know, you know, like yes, you were told, but you didn't know. No, I don't know what other way to say that. Right. Oh, it's, it's, that's it. It's exactly right. You can't possibly. Know the experience until you're living it, which is why it's so important to, like, I I, I like to tell patients like, you're never going to have this all figured out. I, I'm, I'm a therapist and I'm 15 years out post op, and I will be the first one to say, I do not have this all figured out. I learn constantly about my own body, and so I think with you when you approach it. It's more of a curiosity, not this exact expectation. You leave yourself open for learning, um, instead of failing. Yeah, I, I like the, the curiosity, not, not such expectation. Also exactly what you said, how it's ever evolving. I always say we don't like reach the summit and we're good. And that's it. We figured it out. I mean, I think I'm about five years into really working on my health, having kept significant weight off. But it's like, man, every quarter, I like to say, every few months I have different eating preferences. I have different movement practices, different things that matter to me, and. You know, you can almost like, you can catch the evolution on the podcast, right? Some people knew me even from a previous podcast, right? It's like you can see how I've kind of changed over time, and I think that's quite normal. That's quite natural, we learn different things, we have different experiences. But I find that there's a resistance to that though. Because people say, and this is, someone said this exactly to me the other day, a patient, they said, I realize there was no magic bullet. They had met with the dietitian. They thought magic flutes were gonna happen, right? I suddenly they were gonna know the answer and they're like, oh, it's what you said. I need to kind of experiment. I need to figure this out. Do you have any tools for people to stay open to curiosity and to not be so locked in? Because I think we kind of like black and white in our mind. Kind of it's this or it's that. How do we stay that gray zone? I mean, I'll, I guess I'll use myself as an example. If you put on paper the amount of times that I have messed this up, th stuff that made me feel s too much alcohol. One time that I, that I had a month where it was just, I, I couldn't care less on paper. I would be a failure. I mean, if you look at all the different things that I have done in those 15 years, you anyone might look at that paper and say, oh my God, she's failing. But if you look at my stats, if you look at my BMI, if you look at my height and my weight and all the things that I do or surrounding bariatric mental health, and you look at my physical appearance, you'd say, wow, she's been really successful. You can have success and failure going at the same time. Love that. Yeah, it's never, it's never all or nothing and. Particularly, you know, as you move through life, you, you might have children, you might get married, you might divorce, you might move. There's nothing stagnant in life, so there's no reason to think that weight loss or weight maintenance is going to remain stagnant. Yeah. I like that you bring up this, you know, two things can be true at the same time, what you're thinking of as a, a failure, but also success. And it's, it's interesting. I see. Patience. I thought someone earlier today where they were so rooted on, no, I really wanna hold onto all the failures. And I'm saying, but look over here. You've lost 10% weight and you've made this change and you've made that change. And by the end of the 30 minute visit they were, they were like, I could see that they were different, the way in which they were thinking about things. But initially it was just so tied to, no, it can't be success to maintain this past month with everything that was going on. Kind of holding a little bit more of a duality, like, let me look more objectively at both of these. I'm, I'm always a fan of like, lists on one side, let me write all the crappy things I tell myself, but on the other side, what else is true? Kind of looking at both of those a little bit. I in. Came up in a group, one of our group sessions a couple weeks ago where, one of the group members was talking about how she had lost, I think about a hundred pounds, 107 pounds. It was 107 pounds. And she, over the past years, eight months or something, had had gained back seven. And I sat there and I listened to her and I validated her frustration in that. And I pointed out to her at the end of, when she stopped talking, I said, you said you lost 100 pounds. Once you talked about gaining seven pounds four times, why seven pounds? Gain, get to Trump a hundred pound loss. Yeah. Because our brains are wired to critique and criticize and self-doubt and look at the negative. And so it really is a lot of mind shift work in pointing out, the reality, the actual reality of what's going on with our bodies. And a lot of it is psycho ed and physical ed, to say like, there's nothing going wrong here. What you term going wrong is actually simply part of the process. Oh I love that. I love that. And it's, it's interesting'cause I think sometimes I think that so much of it is the influence that we're in society where there's so much diet culture going on. And if people are newer to listening to this podcast, it's like diet culture is this very prescribed, like it has to be this way. You know, you have to look a certain way, eat a certain thing, do a certain thing basically I think everyone thinks you just lose weight and it's like perfect land, right? And you just keep going. And that's not, that's never been reality for any of us that have ever lost and lost and kept off even a pound. I think then it's like we don't even know that this can be normal. So we don't even realize that it's a problem how we're thinking about it. Yeah. No, I, I mean I think some of that is just mind shift work and I think sometimes people go in there with a false reality, especially when you're looking at a GLP one and the wild success that people have had on it or bariatric surgery, and you're looking at, oh my gosh, so and so on tick tock and so and so on Instagram. My gosh, look at them. It's like. No, no, no, no, no. We gotta look in the mirror a little bit more and be become curious about our own bodies, our own emotional, mental development. Yeah, yeah. Or like you bring that, I always say that we have to stay in our own lane because we never know the genetics or the situation or what's going on with someone else. We all have vastly different lives what we're capable of, like. I'll give you an example. I love, oh gosh, do you follow her? Her name is Tanya on TikTok and, and, and she's like taking back your life at 40. Anyway, she love her. Okay. I'm Tanya. I wanted you on the podcast. I keep asking, but Okay. I love her so much, but she talks about how she walks a lot every day. Like she'll be on these lives in the morning. Sometimes I'll be able to listen. Mm-Hmm. I think she's massively motivational. I love listening to her. And I think that she's walking probably like two hours a day, which by the way, amazing. I don't know that everyone has access to that, right? If you are in a job, let's say you're working over 40 hours a week, maybe you then have child care responsibilities. Sometimes it's not possible. Now, can something be possible? Yes. I. But what it looks like for you might be different. So you maybe can't compare to people that maybe surgery wasn't covered for you on your insurance. Maybe you don't have access to the anti-obesity medications. Maybe you're going through a mental health crisis right now and you need to adjust your medications because it's really life or death. Those things are gonna trump at the moment, these other things. And so that's why I'm like, let's all kind of stay in our lane because it helps give a little bit more, I know grace is the only word I can think of, but compassion for where you're at. And ultimately, I think maybe you can tell me if I'm right with this, but I think that the research points to that if we're very critical to ourselves. We do not take as good health actions toward ourselves. Like we think it helps to beat ourselves up, but actually it leads to worse outcomes. Am I right with that? Like the, what I've read? Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's just so self-defeating. It doesn't add anything into it. I mean, I have used the analogy'cause I've worked with patients from a bunch of different bariatric programs, all with different sets of instructions, all with different sets of, I mean they're all different. None are identical. And you can line up people from each of those programs who started the exact same. Height and weight and you can give them, you know, you can give them all different diet or the, this exact same diet and you're in one year later you're gonna have 100 different end products. Yes. You know, in, in the same way you, I can be working with people from different programs. Have people wildly successful from multiple programs and people really struggling from multiple programs. So it, it's such an individual journey and I, I think where socials can. Benefit us by kind of Bri, it can also isolate peopl. And I think that's the drawback of the comparison game. And you and, and the people saying, well, you should have lost this by now and you should be eating this by now. And it, it just doesn't flesh out. It's NI also puts a lot of pressure, right? Because I think to myself, I think that's something we talked about last time, like. I've always been someone that has lost very slow, and it's interesting because it's almost been good because my mind could catch up to what was happening with my body, but at the same time, I judged myself, right? Because I was like, well, everyone else can lose more than a pound or two per month, so why can't you do that? Right? Yes. But you, you brought up something, there were two videos in the past that you made that were really impactful on me, and one of them, you were talking about how you f you facilitate a bariatric support group. And I want you to talk more about that too.'cause I, I, I hear all the success you're having. So one of the things you talked about is that people talk a lot about this fear of regain, and I think that this applies to everyone. And so. What are you, you've mentioned a good kind of, what do you want the role of food to be? And I was wondering if you could address that, because I think that people worry about regain and they don't know any ways to think about this differently, so I wonder what your thoughts are on that. Know, I think there's a couple things when it comes to fear of regaining first, it's a valid fear because the numbers are high, so it's a point that we wanna consider. Yeah, I think fear of regaining often centers itself in diet culture because if you've been dieting for years or decades or your entire life, the pattern is is that you lose this weight and your brain knows it's going to regain as soon as it's done. I mean, so you know, that is the typical pattern until the next thing comes along. Until you can lose that. Quick weight again and then regain or gain more. So I think first of all, that fear is rooted in, in diet culture. So I mean, when I think one of the things is, is to. Unlearn diet culture rules, because we are programmed with diet culture rules even if someone's lost, has not died their entire lives. You've been in the world enough to know what diet culture is and how it affects, so to reprogram some of those diet culture rules. I, I often will say the two goals of bariatric surgery is one to lose weight and the other is to live with that sustained weight loss. And that's the part that most people had the issue with. Yep. So I mean, one of the questions I generally will ask is like, in the active weight loss phase, or as you're preparing for this. What role are you comfortable with food having in your life? Are you comfortable? Are, are you this person that is going to, thinks that you know baked chicken and broccoli is gonna be on the table every day and that's all you want? Are you okay with stepping out of that and having a night a week where you enjoy date night with your partner? Are you okay with enjoying foods that come up, periodically in holidays or special occasions? Where are you comfortable drawing the line? And that's gonna look different for everyone. I, you know, for, for myself, I. I'm not a restrictive eater. I, I don't, I'm not a proponent of restrictive eating. With that said, when someone is a restrictive eater, we generally start with how is that working? Tell me how the struggles, the, you know, how is that working for you? I mean, go from there. But I, I believe with this long-term goal of living with weight loss, you gotta be comfortable. Pivoting and shifting with the role of food. Again, it's not stagnant and it so often depends on where you are in life and what's going on in your life. Okay, so here's what I heard from you. It is what role do you want food to play? And you need to decide. So you need to throw away the like, I can't eat before this time, or I have to do this or that. Recreate the robot. I can't tell you how much time I spend with patients on this. And by the way you saying that question, I literally said it to one of my patients, they were gonna go on a cruise and I was like, I want you to. I want you to have fun on that cruise. I want you to think about what role you want food to play, I want it to be freedom, but I want you to think beforehand and that question literally coming from you, it, it really helped redefine their entire trip. So I wanna say thank you for that.'cause they, they definitely, that by proxy got through to them. But I love this thinking. You can write it because ultimately you're gonna write your own rules anyway. It's just muddled by the mess. That is diet culture. But you need to spend some time to kind of get clarity on that. So I, I love that you bring that up and then you brought up in another video something where I'm like, oh, this was so good too. You were talking about, everyone's always like, here are my stats, right? Like, this is how much I've lost and whatever. And you were like, this is what, what you said, you were like, those are your stats, but how are. You, that's how you said it in your video. Yeah. And can you talk a little bit more about that?'cause I think peo, to hear this Yeah. I mea when you're going through weight loss and as particularly with bariatric surgery, you are hyper-focused on protein intake and hyd and calories and you're, you know, you're being intentional about all of it. And so I of your mind, but when they come see me and I will say like. Okay. How was your week? How are you doing? Okay, well, I've lost three pounds and like, my doctor said that and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I didn't, I didn't ask what you weighed. I asked how you were doing, you know, and we're more than our damn weight. And I think for many people we have been told that our worthiness is attached to our body size for so much of our lives that it is so ingrained. And I think some of, you know, in therapy is dismantling is, is. Separating worthiness from weight. Mm-Hmm. There's so many examples of it, you know, out, out, there's so much, you know, weight bias out there. But I think that is one of the fundamental parts of, of a productive therapy is, is dismantling that relationship and that when someone asks how you are, they're not asking about, you know, how many ounces you lost that weight. They want to know how you're doing. Yeah. Oh, that's so good. You know, I struggle with this one because I think like, like especially as you, like let's say you go to a party or you go to a conference, so you're in a place where you're more visible, right? I feel like day to day, who cares, right? Like my patients know what I look like, all that. But then I feel like there's this judgment where I think, well, people think I should look this certain way or like. You know, you'll really zoom in on whatever things you judge yourself for. Whether heard from a patient earlier today, it was wrinkles from me. I would think about my stomach. Like we all have our thing. Right. And I think about that you just said here, that separating our, our worthiness from our weight. I know that intellectually, but I think for so many years it was so all the time emphasized that I feel like it's gonna take more than a few years for me to, to move past that. Right? Yes. So how do you, how do you have clients work on that? Practice and time and the knowledge that upfront, this is not going to happen overnight. It's, it's, it's not, and don't give up because in. Four months you have, you know, an internal meltdown because, you know, you're comparing yourself to someone else or something triggers, you know, an an emotional reaction because you don't like the way you look in an outfit. That's okay. It's, you don't have to love the way you look every single day. There's no pressure here to like, be in love with your bodily appearance all the time. Like, you know, we say love yourself and that's great, but let's be real too. I don't look in the mirror and love how I look every day. Regardless of my weight, I'm at a low weight and that doesn't make me look in the mirror and love how I look every single day. Totally. I love that you bring that up. Yeah. I, I think some like the body positive move, I think the movement is great, right? But I think sometimes the thought that and that's not, I'm not saying that this is what they're saying, but I used to think that their message was, I have to love myself all the time and. I think partly you not hating yourself all the time can be the first step. Like you just coming into neutrality is what I often say. Yeah. I don't need you to love, but you hating is very much so ne draining your, at your battery all the time. You've got no energy than to make good choices in other areas. So neutrality is often an easier place to come to than than liking loving. Right. Those are like much deeper connections. We don't need that to begin with. So I like that you bring that up like. Practice and there's gonna be moments where you don't, I mean, you don't need to love anything. I think that's really good for people to hear. Don't, and I think, I think just acknowledging that like, today is a rough day and I'm really having trouble, you know, accepting my body image. I think the other thing that happens too, when we're kind of rebuilding our relationship with our own bodies, with our own physical selves is like. Understanding and relearning how to trust our bodies because for people who have struggled with weight for a, a lifetime, and lots of my patients are people who have struggled for a long time, their their lifetimes. We don't trust our bodies. We don't trust it to lose weight. We don't trust it to maintain weight loss. We don't trust our hunger, our fullness cues. We don't trust it at all. So. Part of like beginning to like yourself and enjoy yourself and, and, and not hate yourself, maybe is, is like building trust up again with your own physical body. And I think that's something that often is undervalued and dismissed when it comes to weight loss and living with weight loss. Yeah. I wanna give an example from that with this trust with the body because I feel like we say that, and if people are listening and you haven't done this work for a long time, you might be like, I don't, don't know what you're talking about. So with me, I have this pattern where like there'll be like a three to four week period I'm doing, when I say doing great, for me that means really balancing my meals, getting protein fiber, like really living in what I would consider integrity with what I wanna do. And then what I would notice is there would always be a period for two, three days now. Okay. Sometimes it could be around my period, but sometimes not where I would just want more carbs, like a piece of cake. Like, just like, but for a few days at a time. Right. And I always really judge myself and then I just came to notice. That was what I needed, right? It wasn't me binging, it wasn't me being outrageous. And what was funny is I started to work with a coach that really, helped me to understand like, listen, this is not a problem. This might actually work for you. Look, the rest of the time what you're doing this time, all of that. And what I realized was I think that's what allowed me to actually keep putting on muscle as I was losing weight. I have one of those body types that's allowing that, and I was like, oh, maybe that's helping with some leptin resistance. Like who knows? But the point is it works. It's not weird calorie cycling. It's not an urge or a craving. I can't describe it. It's like, no, you're gonna need to try some of that. And it's like interesting, and I would say that's trust with my body, that like, I'm trusting that there's nothing broken, wrong. We're not gonna lose control for days on end. You know? It's like, no, this is, this is okay. Yeah. I get people asking, okay, I was so craving this and this, like, what's wrong? And I'm like. Nothing you wanted chocolate. Have it. That's a human experience. Like, there's nothing going wrong here. You can't, you, you, you can have surgery, you can lose weight. Guess what? You're still a human being like, yeah, it's not erased. You know? I mean, yeah. I mean, and that is, it's like. Also to, to, to be able to have that cake, be able to have that chocolate and say, I, I really enjoyed that. It tasted so good. Yes. That's trust. You're trusting your body. Yeah. I mean, it's as simple as that really. Exactly. That's a different experience when I know like in the past about like, I can't have that, it's forbidden. It's, you know, the restricted meeting that we know never works and leads to the bend restrict cycle, but it, it would be like spark down very quickly needing to have more'cause you never really enjoyed it versus being like very slow and intentional and. Just very different experience. So, and, and I always say kind of, you know, snobby with the extras, like I want it to be the best of the best. Like I'm, I'm thinking about cake right now.'cause there was this bakery in Chicago that they've been around for 40 years. They were gonna close and like, I'd never had a piece of cake like that before. It was amazing. And it's like, this wasn't any old piece of cake, you know? Yes, yes. So it's interesting with that trust. Mm-Hmm. I think another thing that you've talked a lot about, and we kind of talked about this, but kind of just. How chronic in nature this is, this is gonna be for life, that you're gonna have to manage this and figure it out and you know, there's no sort of like going off track. You've talked before about, and I love the language you use for this, how if you had a few days where you feel like maybe I'm not, I. Exactly on the track. I want to be that you'll get back to what you call disciplined eating. You might even log some food. Not to be punitive, but just to kind of re-get awareness and how it's different than like what a dietitian would do. Things like that. Can you talk more about that, because I think that'd be really helpful. Yeah, actually just, I brought this up in our group. We were talking about this'cause we had a discipline versus motivation and what the difference is. Oh, I love that. Mm-Hmm. This last week and one thing, I, you know, we kind of talked all about the examples of what, what people were doing. And I said, something I do is I, I'll choose a random day, maybe once every three to four months. I, I don't, I generally don't log my food or calories or, or track that. But what I will do is choose a random day and I will, at the end of that day. Go back and kind of log what I've eaten that day, and it's simply information gathering. I'm not, I'm not tracking for any other reason to be like, what, what am I eating? Because, I mean, obesity is a disease and so if, if. You know, you've, it is a management of the disease all the time, and so I can be a thin weight, but if I'm not managing or, or, or looking at it, it's not gonna be long before the scale creeps up and I'm struggling again with trying to get my weight down. So I will often do that. The other thing I talk about with this discipline eating is that. If I am struggling a bit or if I'm really kind of off track and not feeling great about my food choices and kind of feeling like I'm going off the rails, I will default to discipline eating. And really, when I say that, what I mean is that I'm defaulting to a way of eating that I know feeds me emotionally, physically, and mentally. And that's gonna look like high protein. It's gonna look like, healthy fats and carbs and adequate calories. I'm not restricting anything. I am feeding my, my mind and my body. Fully so that I know it's energized and and functioning properly, but I'm also eating in a way that I know is energizing me and not taking anything away from me. And I think that's sometimes when people say a reset in my mind, that's kind of what a reset is. I'm gonna, you know, next three or four days I'm going to eat in a disciplined way. And that might include. It might include planning what I'm going to eat, not all the time. It might include tracking, not all the time. I've been at this a while, so generally I just kind of know what I'm going to eat that day to kind of make it a more disciplined eating day. Yeah. But yeah, I always wanna make that distinction between discipline and restriction because I, I don't believe in restriction at all. Yeah. Oh, I love that so much. Yeah. I describe if I think about a time, like the times when, again, if I just, you just know, I just know what, I'm not feeling that great with what I'm doing. And it's exactly what you're talking about where I'm like, okay, let's bring in the protein, let's bring in the veggies. Right? It's not a time to to withhold because you think you've been doing whatever. It's so fascinating, right? I always think of when you're in the snowstorm, what do they say? Like, turn into the spin out. I'm trying to away. Right? Right. I mean,'cause weight loss for so many people has been punitive. You know, it's been a punishment. You can't have that because. You need to be losing weight. And so we're conditioned to see weight loss as a punishment and restricted, and we, I. If you're going to, I, I mean, one thing I'll say is I didn't get bariatric surgery to be on a diet for the rest of my life. I got bariatric surgery so I don't have to diet. And so a lot of, a lot of that mindset comes with, again, dumping established food rules that have seeped down into your psyche for years or decades. And part of that is, is discipline. Eating does not equal restriction or punitive measures. Yeah. Ugh. You said so many great things today. I, I, I've pulled out so many gems just to name some of them, but you know that there's no end of this journey. We can, we can think there are failures, but there really can be, all these successes can both be true. Can we be curious? Can we recreate some of these, not rules for ourselves, but just loving boundaries and like what discipline might look like and what feels good for us and all of that. So I know people are gonna have learned so much. Can you tell us a little bit about, we were talking about this before and I was like, wait, we've gotta talk about this on the podcast. I know that you, this past year, you launched a new bariatric virtual support group. So can you tell us a little bit about, kind of, what was your thought when you launched it? What ended up happening? I'm, I'm just so curious to hear. Yeah, so I, I mean, I would get a lot of like instant messages or people emailing me asking, Hey, can I set up a session with you? And, I'm a psychotherapist in Michigan. I can't provide psychotherapy to individuals outside of Michigan. Right? And so kind of a good compromise was like, well let me set up a group. Let me throw it out there, see what the interest might be. And so, what ended up launching and, and happening was a group for, ended up being an over-forty, group. And we are meeting for the last time, this coming Sunday. We meet on Sunday afternoons because of all the different time differences, right. It just seems to work for, for everyone and it's been amazing. We have been able to share, and it's a group that has gelled so well together and the experiences that. Have been shared. I, I've looked at it more than once and thought, this is really why I love social media is because this experience is bringing people together, bringing them out of isolation, bringing them together, allowing people to share. And the, I love hearing women say, and it, it is a group of all women, but I love hearing women say, I never thought of it like that. Yes. And provide these different perspectives, of. You don't, sometimes you don't realize your food rules until someone else has a different food rule. Yes. And so when you hear, when, when I love to watch the women's faces in this group as someone is saying something just wonderful and I'm watching the other like. You know, it's so great to see those light bulb type moments and to really open people's eyes to like, what, you know, what can this journey look like? It doesn't have to be awful and isolating. It can be fun. We can laugh about it. We can share experiences, we can, you know, you know, share our path. So it's, it's been amazing. Most women's group want to continue, so I'm hoping to continue that and then launch a, another kind of beginning, group you know, similar to that one. That is so nice to hear. You know, I've run groups for years and that's the best thing in the world when everybody's sharing in fact, sometimes it's the best. I, I know I talk a lot on this podcast, but in real life I like to actually sit back. I'm a little bit more of an introvert. Kind of like to sit back and not like observing people, but I love to hear their stories. Like I'm very with it. If that, if that makes sense. Right. And I've always, I'm, I've always been part of a group thing. Even right now I'm part of a year-long program. It is, I can't imagine a world where I'm not connecting with others and. Hearing their experience and me getting to share. So it sounds like you, you might have a group coming up here if people were interested in that, they wanted to kind of start anew with you. Yeah. Yeah, I had an overwhelming response for the over 40 group and so, probably within the next week or so, I'm gonna be doing a little bit of content rolling. I'm kind of finishing up planning, timing, that kind of thing. I'll probably start doing a bit of content about, what's coming up next and what's available for anyone who's interested. Perfect. Okay.'cause we're gonna get this episode sewed out like in the next like two weeks or something. So pretty soon. So you just let me know if there's a date before, but everybody, I have followed Kathryn for a really long time. I literally was gonna contact me and be like, listen, I didn't have bariatric surgery, but can I join the group? So. Because it's just, listen, the principles are the same. I don't care what you have done. It's the same thought process, right? Like some of the things are different so tell everybody where we'll link to everything, but where can they find you? And then if someone's local to your state, how could they work with you? So kind of give us all their ways they can. So you can find me on TikTok, it's Callaway. And then bariatric therapist. You can find me on TikTok, in my TikTok bio is my email, so you can directly email me or simply leave me a message on TikTok with your email and I can get, if you're in Michigan, I can get information on insurances accepted and psychotherapy availability, that kind of thing. Or if you're not Michigan, I can send you information on individual coaching or support groups that are coming up soon. Love that. Okay. Thank you. We're gonna put all of that in the show notes, so if anyone needs links to that,'cause I know I'm horrible with spelling, so we'll have directly, by the way, show notes, if anyone's listening, it's on renteeaclinic.com forward slash blog. That's where it's all the long form written out, all the links to everything. If you're listening on a podcast and you're swiping right or left and you see the written thing, but the links don't work, then you wanna go to, to the blog for the clinic. So any parting words, anything you think people need to hear that they should know at the end here? Anything that's that's important that we missed so much? I mean, right. It's like you, that's a loaded question. I need to act it differently. Like, so much, so much. I mean, I I've been doing this. Semester I'll say, I've been doing, tic-tac lives every Tuesday at one Eastern Standard time. And there's a lot of good, material that comes up in there if you ever wanna join in there as well. But I, you know, I would say, I would say this is the long haul. This is not nothing, whether you're taking a, GLP-I or dieting under a program or getting bariatric surgery, if you struggle with. This is one tool and this is a lifelong management. You know, people will periodically say, you know, ask, well, you know, like, what do you do? And like, how do you do it? How have you been successful? I'm like. Like, because I, every single day, like I, there's no end button. I never pushed a button that said, I'm done. I'm not, I'm never gonna be done with this. Yeah. And I love, you've, you've talked about this a lot online, how you're like, it doesn't matter what I do because it's gonna be so different compared to what works for you. That's why I mean, yes, curiosity gets me, when I watch the what I eat in a day. But I remember one of my favorite creators the other day, she did it and I was thinking it's either too little, too much, not what you like. I mean, I looked at it, I was like, I could never, I don't even know what she's doing. I could never eat like that. I did not make a comment. But, but the point is. That's why I've stayed away from those videos. They're so fun to watch. But you said like, it's gonna be different for all of us and take inspiration, but then come back to what might work for you.'cause it's gonna look different, right? You don't have to follow the blueprint of someone else. You take the instruction sheet they give you and you put in the bullet points. Yes. Yes. So good. Well, I just wanna say again, thank you so much for coming and doing this. Everyone's gonna love this. Thank you. Absolutely. Absolutely.